In my mind I am hearing Barbara Streisand sing that classic lament. “What’s to painful to remember, We simply choose to forget”.
I’m standing in a hotel lobby—after dragging my own bag through the revolving door—pondering that age-old industry cliché: “Your home away from home.” It’s a lovely sentiment, isn’t it? It conjures images of comfort, ease, and a place where your burdens are lifted. But looking around the modern hotel landscape, I have to ask: have we evicted the “home” and just left the bill?
Cast your mind back. Not to ancient history, but just a couple of decades ago. Arrival was an event. A doorman greeted you, a porter whisked your luggage away as if it weighed nothing. Your car? Valeted, gratis, simply part of the service. You’d wake up to a selected newspaper at your door, the room was refreshed daily without a manifesto on your pillow about saving the planet (which usually just means saving on housekeeping expenses), and turndown service was a standard touch of grace. It was an ecosystem of service designed to remove the friction of life.
Fast forward to today’s “unbundled” reality. The creep of revenue generation has seeped into every crack in the plaster. That gym and pool? That’s now a “Destination Fee.” Early check-in? That’s a surcharge. We are slicing and dicing the guest experience into granular “attributes”—a high floor, a quiet corner, a specific view—and putting a price tag on every single one. We’re dangerously close to charging for the oxygen in the lobby.
The staff who used to exist solely to remove the burden from the guest? Gone. Replaced by kiosks or simply by the guest’s own labor. We’ve shifted the work onto the customer while simultaneously hiking the rate.
If I charged my family a “facility fee” to use the living room or a “cleaning surcharge” to make their beds, it wouldn’t be much of a home, would it? We need to be careful. When everything is an extra, it stops being hospitality and starts looking a lot like a spiraling landlord dispute.
Life is so tech. But hospitality shouldn’t be an optional add-on.
Mark Fancourt
